


aloha

by magicandlight



Series: The States [29]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Mother's Day, very late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 22:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14703549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: aloha: Hawaiian;exclamation & noun; used when greeting or parting from someone





	aloha

_aloha: Hawaiian;_ _exclamation & noun; used when greeting or parting from someone_

**_present:9/21/1984_ ** **_  
_ **

Ginny is glaring at him meaningly as she cuts Lani's cake, and Alfred looks at her plaintively.

She just glares at him more.

With a sigh, Alfred disappears, making sure Lani doesn't notice him leaving.

He trudges down to the basement, unlocking one of the storage rooms.

Memorabilia and relics from every decade, every state and corner of his territory sit on the shelves.

There are flags- just about every single one he's ever had, plus all the various state flags from throughout the years- folded into triangles and stacked and then miscellaneous artifacts, ranging from an authentic revolutionary war gun to a WWII-era Japanese katana to a box of Confederate gold.

Alfred goes straight to the back wall, lined with industrial shelving and neatly organized metal safe boxes, where more sensitive items are stored.

He lets his fingers run over them, reading the labels.

 _Pieces of Mississippi River Panorama; John Banvard. Personal correspondence; Washington. Letters, Prohibition-Era; Cassidy. Transcript of Speech, given on May 29, 1856, in Bloomington, Illinois; Lincoln. Assorted Films (Silent). Journals, 1790s; William. Wright Patent-Copy. Film Negatives; Calypso. Personal correspondence; Hamilton. Fair Copy of the Declaration of Independence_.

His fingers stop on one of the boxes. It's one of the larger ones, on one of the bottom shelves.

 _Possessions of Kaia Hoapili, Personification of the Kingdom of Hawaii_.

Alfred sighs, and pulls the box from the shelf.

**_past:12/19/1842_ **

_The first time he meets the personification of Hawaiʻi, she and her delegation are asking for recognition as an independent nation._

_Hawaiʻi stands proud and talk and does not beg for recognition, not for a single second._

_America extends his hand, and Hawaiʻi takes it without hesitation. Without fear._

_"Alfred F. Jones."_

_"Kaia Hoapili."_

**_present_ **

The other states make their excuses and scatter when they see the box.

And so Lani is alone when Alfred sets the box down on the table in front of her.

He hands her the key and watches as she sits forward to unlock it.

Alfred watches Lani's sharp inhale as her eyes land on the photographs on the top of the box.

Lani's fingers ghost over the photograph, tracing her mother's face. Tracing the features they share.

The dark, endless, fathomless eyes. The thick waves of dark hair. The gentle curve of a smile. The dark, tanned skin.

Lani looked more like her mother than she looked like anyone else.

Lani swallows, and sets the photo aside to examine the other contents of the box.

Her fingers drift over a handful of beaded leis, a collection of seashells and carved trinkets.

Her fingers stop on the letter placed in the middle to draw attention to it.

Alfred closes his eyes as Lani breaks the seal on the envelope and pulls out the letter.

**_past: 1891_ **

_Kaia has been getting weaker for a long time, and when the pains start, she knows._

_Kaia knows she is dying._

_Her people laugh when she tells them. You? You are too young to die._

_Nevermind that she is centuries old._

_But she knows, the way she knows when her people are hurting or when disaster will strike._

_She is dying, but she will be replaced._

_Her people will be taken care of, and that's all she cares about._

_\---------------_

_There are aches and pains dancing across Kaia's body, getting worse every day._

_And then one day, there is a baby found on the beach._

_She is brought up to the palace, and the queen watches as the baby is handed to her nation._

_Kaia smiles sadly and holds her daughter._

_\---------------_

_It is no choice at all to keep Hawai'i secret._

_Kaia doesn't trust the foreign nations._

_She doesn't care if they did recognize her independence. They had stomped on her sovereignty before, and would do so again if they could get away with it._

_She doesn't tell them about the child, or about her impending death, and extracts promises from the men and women who know._

_Her replacement shall be safe- she won't end up like the poor Philippines, a little girl tossed around like a toy. (They wonder why little Clara is so uncooperative, but hadn't they stripped her of her old name, renamed her, attempted to remake her. They wondered why little Clara woke up one morning and covered herself in tribal tattoos.)_

_\---------------_

_Kaia doesn't know how long she has left, so she rushes to put her affairs in order._

_She buys a heavy, solid trunk off of some American sailors and begins filing it with her- their- history. ʻAhu ʻulas, the most beautiful quilts her people had given to her after the missionaries taught them, leis. She tosses in anything written in Hawaiian. She wraps up her delicate collection of seashells and fish hooks._

_And when she has put in everything that will fit, she buys journals and begins writing everything as far as she can remember._

_\---------------_

_"You must protect Hawai'i," Kaia tells the queen abruptly._

_The queen looks uneasy. "Kaia, don't speak like this. You'll raise Hawai'i."_

_Kaia sighs heavily, and gives the queen a placating smile. "Of course."_

**_present_ **

Lani opens the letter, and it goes against every parental instinct to just sit there when she starts crying.

Instead of comforting her, he gets up and pours her glass of water.

He sets it down in front of her and quietly waits.

**_past: Autumn, 1892_ **

_Kaia can not help but cry as she writes._

_Every now and then she looks towards the swaddled child sleeping beside her, and continues writing._

**_present_ **

_My dearest daughter,_

_You are both my greatest love and the hardest thing I have ever done._

_From the day you were brought to me, I loved you. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Immediately, I knew I would never love another thing the way I have loved you: transcending everything and anything._

_And I knew, even then, that I would have to leave you. I knew I was fading before you formed._

_I'm sorry that I have left you alone_. 

_I will fade knowing that you will grow into a beautiful, strong woman, and that our people will be safe in your hands._

_Love, your mother_

Lani wipes away the tears and sets the letter aside.

She lets her fingers trace over the seashells and little trinkets still in the box. "Were these all my mother's?"

Alfred let a tiny smile cross his face. "Yep." He plucks one of the trinkets out- a carved ebony chess piece- out. "She took this off England after she kicked his ass in chess. I don't think he's ever gotten over it. Him and France thought Kaia was something of a savage."

Lani smiles at the mental image.

"Tell me about her?"

\---------------

Later, Alfred carries the box up to her room, and Lani adds her mother's seashells to her own collection. She hangs the delicate leis beside her own, and settles the journals onto her bookshelf.

She picks the oldest one and settles into her bed to read.

**_past: winter, 1892_ **

_Kaia knows, when the aches start to fade._

_She smiles at her queen as if nothing is wrong, and walks out to the beach with her daughter._

_Kaia wants to hold her baby again before she dies, and she wants to watch the sunset on the beach one last time._

\---------------

_Death does not scare her._

_Kaia knows she will return to the earth and sky and sea when she dies, and there is some comfort in that._

_Most of her worries rest on the shoulders of her baby, and she hopes her queen follows her instructions, but she can't do anything else for her._

\---------------

_Somewhere where waves crash against the shore, a nation and her replacement lie down on the beach._

_The child sleeps, and the mother falls into a sleep she will never awaken from._

_By the time Hawai'i opens her eyes again, the old nation has faded- back into sand and earth and air._

_There is nothing to bury when a nation dies._

\---------------

_Queen Liliʻuokalani reads the letter over and over._

_She sends someone to the beach._

_They come back with the baby, but not Kaia._

_The queen looks back to the table, where a box of things sit with a note._

_Give this to her when she is old enough._

\---------------

 _Hawai'i,_   _the queen calls the child, trying to erase the idea that there should be a different personification- a different pair of dark eyes- staring back. This time, she will fix the mistakes of her ancestors. This Hawaii will be safer. She shall be secret._

_("What do you mean, Hawaii is dead?" England shouts. "Does she not have a replacement?" France asks. America sits calmly, and says nothing.)_

\---------------

_Hawai'i has grown, the queen thinks as she watches her take her first steps._

_She turns to her right to look for Kaia reflexively._

_Kaia isn't there. She'll never be at the queen's right hand again._

_The queen will have to settle for this small creature with her eyes._

\---------------

_When she is dethroned, the queen takes something far more valuable than any riches with her._

_She burns any record of Hawai'i._

_The guards have just gotten used to the toddler clutching at her dresses, stumbling after her. Once, Hawai'i had given up and sat down on the train of her dress. Liliʻuokalani had humored the girl, dragging her around her rooms all day._

_They watch the papers going up the way one watches a funeral pyre._

_She leaves the palace with a child bundled into her arms._

\---------------

 _It is such a cruelty that the new Hawai'i should look so much like the old one_ ,  _the queen thinks- thick, dark hair, dark, expressive eyes._

_She can already tell the girl will be as beautiful as her mother._

**_past: 1895_ **

_Hawai'i cries when she sends her away._

_It is for the best, the queen thinks._

_She continues to repeat that in her mind as she is arrested and imprisoned._

_**past: October, 1896** _

_She goes to see Hawai'i when she is released._

_Hawai'i looks to be a girl of six, now, and more like her mother than before._

_"I will be going abroad." The former queen says, and it is less of a statement and more of a request that Hawai'i comes with her._

_Hawai'i shakes her head._

_This time, there are no tears as her queen leaves her._

_**past: Autumn 1898** _

_In August, Alfred begins to feel the tug._

_Sera rolls her eyes and books a ticket for the boat to Hawaii._

\---------------

_His first thought is about Kaia._

_But no, this is a different personification, and she doesn't deserve to have the burdens of her predecessor put on her shoulders._

\--------------- _  
_

_Hawai'i first met America when he came to tell her she was now an American territory._

_He seemed genuinely sorry about the rebellion and peeved that no one had ever given her a name._

_America stared at her- thinking- for a long time. "Kalani. That could be your name."_

_Hawai'i stared up at the other. "What?"_

_"Like the last part of your queen's name. Lani for short."_

_Hawai'i thought. Kalani, meaning heaven, sky, royal. She wasn't royal anymore. "What about Kailani?" It was a one letter difference, but it changed the meaning to Sea and Sky._

_"Oh, that's pretty. Now you should pick a last name, if you want."_

_"Just- pick a random name?"_

_America shrugged. "Well, yeah."_

_Hawai'i- Lani?- thought. "Hale?"_

_"That's cool. Lani Hale, the Territory of Hawai'i." America held out his hand. "I'm Alfred F. Jones, the United States of America."_

_Clearly, America was crazy._

_Hawai'i shakes his hand gingerly._

**_past: 1900_ **

_Lani was scared._

_Alfred had told her that congress had passed an Organic Act for her, and she had to travel to DC to sign it._

_She couldn't help the tears the flowed from her eyes as she sat quietly at the table, waiting for the person to come with the paper that would pass her land to America._

_At that moment, she hated him, no matter how nice he'd been to her._

_"Here you go- Are you crying?" There was a boy with blonde hair staring at her from across the table, holding the paper._

_Lani wailed when her eyes landed on the paper. "I don' wanna die!"_

_The boy blinked, looking alarmed._

_The doors slammed open, another blonde, this one a girl, coming in. Her skin was such a dark tan shade she almost matched Lani._

_"What the hell did you do, William? It's been two seconds and she's crying!"_

_"I didn't do anything! She just started crying and saying she didn't want to die when I came in!"_

_"Because that's such a normal reaction, yeah right!"_

_"I don' wanna sign the paper 'cause I'll disappear and there'll be no more me I don't want to die!" Lani started coughing, her sobs not letting her get enough air._

_The girl knelt beside her, smoothing down her skirts and tugging Lani to her. "Baby girl, you're going to make yourself sick. Calm down. Why would you think you were going to die?"_

_"Because that's what happens! I'll get taken over and Hawaii becomes America's and there's no more me!"_

_There was dawning horror in both teens eyes._

_"No one told her." William whispered._

_"What's going on?" Another girl poked her head through the door. This one had black hair, and darker, tanned skin like the other girl. "Why's she crying? Jesus, Will, I knew you were bad with kids but I didn't think you were that bad with them."_

_"WHY DOES EVERYONE ASSUME I DID SOMETHING?!?" Will threw his hands up into the air in exasperation._

_The black-haired girl rolled her eyes at him. "Hey, everything's gonna be alright." The girl said, coming to kneel beside her with the other girl."What's the matter?"_

_Lani sniffed. "Don't want to fade away and die."_

_"Who said anything about dying?" She scanned the paper. "This is just an Act. I signed plenty of these and I'm not dead."_

_Lani blinked. "But you're a person."_

_"So are you."_

_"No, I mean you're human."_

_"Ah, so no one told you."_

_"Told me what?"_

_The girl winked. "New York State, at your service."_

_"Pennsylvania." The boy said with a shrug._

_"California." The blonde girl gave her a smile as she brushed her tears away._

_Lani didn't understand. They were personifications too, but States-_

_"You're states?"_

_They nodded._

_"You're a territory." California responded. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. "There are other territories. Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico." She frowned. "There's Alaska, too, but Dad hasn't found that particular personification yet."_

**_past: 1902_ **

_America comes to see the old queen one year, a slender slip of a girl trailing after him like a shadow._

_She looks too much like England to be human._

_And there, hand in hand with what is clearly England's daughter, is her dear Hawai'i._

\---------------

_After she has held Hawai'i for some time, she asks to have a word with America._

_She drags out the heavy crate that holds the possessions of an ancient personification and jabs a finger into the nation's chest._

_"You will take good care of that girl, do you understand?"_

_America nods, wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut._

_**past: 1903** _

_Ginny watches as he sets the trunk into one of the metal lock boxes._

_They both know Lani is too young, but they both feel guilty about it._

_Ginny locks the box with a shaking hand._

_She hangs the key up and leaves without another word._

**_present_ **

Sasha jumps onto her bed with no warning, making Lani- and her mother's journal- bounce. "Careful!"

Sasha winces apologetically. "Sorry." He leans over her shoulder to read. "Your mom's?"

She nods. Back in January, Alfred had finally given Sasha the dossier on Russia, with all the known information they had on the other nation. 

They'd sat together and poured over the documents, speculating on what Sasha's father was like. "The rest of her things are in that box." She nods her head to the trunk sitting at the foot of her bed, and Sasha rolls off the bed and walks over to it to look.

She goes back to reading. 

Tomorrow, they'll lay out the contents of the box and read her letters and question her personality, but tonight Lani will read her mother's journal, and then she will cry, and Sasha will end up sleeping sprawled on top of her blankets because despite being awful at comforting people, he never leaves her alone when she's upset.

And it's going to be okay. 

**_epilogue: 5/12/1985_ **

Callie watches Lani as the girl places hibiscus flowers onto the sand, and then into the ocean. 

To humans, the tradition seems morbid, but personifications have strange relationships with death. 

If it comforts Lani to put out hibiscus flowers over the beach where her mother had faded every mother's day, then so be it. 

Lani rejoins her, brushing sand off her hands. 

"All done?" Cal asks. 

Lani glances back, watching a hibiscus flower sink under the waves before it gets washed back up on shore. "All done." 

She slips her hand into Callie's, and together they walk away from the beach. 


End file.
